


The Path

by Thevetia



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thevetia/pseuds/Thevetia





	The Path

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reading Redhead (readingredhead)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/readingredhead/gifts).



Eleven days after she had died, and been forced to return from the First Precinct of Death, Sabriel stood with Touchstone in the hollow on Cloven Crest, or Barhedrin Hill as it had once been known. The winter sun shone clear on the frozen snow on the hilltop, and on the broken Charter Stone that stood there.

Sabriel approached the Stone gingerly, her senses questing for the Dead, trying to ignore the unease that the broken Stone awoke in her. The gate to Death that the broken Stone had opened was still there. She let herself walk along the boundary of Life and Death, just at the spring of the river at the edge of the First Precinct of Death. It was only a trickle about her feet, but its slight tug deeper into Death was not as easy for her to resist as it should have been. The monotonous gray landscape of Death clouded around her in all directions, but no dangers thrust out of the mist, or lurked in the cold water; nothing apparent even to the full stretch of her awareness. It was strange, and Sabriel distrusted strangeness even when it seemed benign. She pulled herself back into Life and shook the frost from her face and hair.

“I do not sense any Dead,” she said doubtfully. “No nearer than in deep in Death, and none in Life anywhere near this hilltop.” Touchstone did not look much reassured. He had been standing guard while she stepped into Death, and although he had said nothing, it was clear that he was not happy about her easy travel into Death at this place.

“It could be that Kerrigor’s binding has stopped the corruption that allowed the Dead and the Free Magic beings their freedom,” Touchstone suggested.

“That would explain the quietness here,” Sabriel agreed.

Touchstone had freed himself of his pack and was circling the Stone warily, as if expecting a Dead revenant to materialize from the Stone itself. “But this Charter Stone is still broken, and the Great Stones too,” he said. “If nothing is done, some other being than Kerrigor will certainly take advantage of the Charter’s weakness.”

He glanced over to their packs on the ground, inside which slept two little cats, a black and a white, secure under Ranna’s spell.

Sabriel had no answer. She wasn’t sure anymore of Touchstone’s purpose or plans. She had first thought of him as just an unfortunate young man who needed to be useful, only later as a companion and friend, but she was realizing that he had a purpose in the Old Kingdom to which he had been born, just as she did. That was an uncomfortable thought.

She watched worriedly as Touchstone stopped his circling and now stood before the Stone, his jaw set in concentration, as if he would force the Stone to speak the Charter Marks that still faintly etched its surface, now dead and meaningless.

“If the blood of a Charter Mage can break a Stone, it can also mend it. And the Blood of one of the Great Charters must surely be of some power. If I can remember the marks,” Touchstone muttered, “and if I have the strength to speak them.” He limped around the tall menhir, stumbling on the tumbled ground.

Sabriel fidgeted. She was cold and tired, and there was still a long way to go to reach the Abhorsen’s House. She was willing to trust Touchstone, but could not forget her last visit to the broken Stone, to Cloven Crest as the Perimeter Scouts called it, back across the Wall in Ancelstierre. Ancelstierre, a place that had seemed so much safer and quieter than the Old Kingdom, but where she had found that she had no desire to linger longer than necessary.

>>>

After the end of Kerrigor’s attack at Wyverly College, Major Tindall had been kind and helpful to Sabriel and Touchstone, but just as happy to see them go. Away from Wyverly, and away from the Northern Perimeter of Ancelstierre. For a long time visitors from the Old Kingdom had brought mostly ill to the Ancelstierre side of the Wall. That Sabriel, who was the Abhorsen now, and her apparently royal companion, had fought and defeated a monstrous evil, had only reinforced the Major’s duty to defend Ancelstierre against attacks from across the Wall. Far too many of the Major’s men were dead, and it was clear to Sabriel that as far as Major Tindall was concerned, the best thing that could be done for the Wall defenses was to get these two important citizens of the Old Kingdom back where they belonged, and where they could continue to do whatever it was that the Charter needed.

He’d had them taken to Bain’s tiny hospital, to a private room off the six-bed ward. The Crossing Scout Charter Mages had cast on them all the spells of healing that they could, and Sabriel’s sword wound and Touchstone’s broken leg had begun to heal.

But Sabriel had begged that they be moved back to Perimeter HQ.

“This far from the Wall, Magic is too weak to complete healing,” she said. “And we have to return to the Old Kingdom as soon as possible.”

Even as she made her plea Sabriel had wondered if Touchstone found his vague status in Ancelstierre too awkward. But she was irritated with herself at the same time. She had been taking the initiative for most of the brief time they had known each other, why should she care now about his pride? Nothing had changed, no matter what the unfamiliar turmoil of her emotions might mean.

Two days later, Sabriel and Touchstone were in the same staff car they had been in before, this time being driven back to the Crossing Point. She thought of Colonel Horyse, now dead, and long past the Final Gate. His daughter would never speak to him again, not in Life or in Death. Sabriel mourned, a little, and shivered. She wanted to take Touchstone’s hand again, as they had only a little while ago in this same car, but he was wrapped in a stiffness and distance that she did not want to disturb, for fear of rebuff. He was the King now, or realizing that he was the King. He had grown, she thought, in the short weeks she had known him. From guilt-ridden sometime Royal Guard, with a touchy dignity he deliberately abased, to - well - someone else. He treated her with perfect courtesy and a deference due to a respected equal, but not like a, a, - Sabriel stopped that thought. He said he loved me, she thought. And I said the same. But I don’t have time to explore that, and neither does he. Not now. She had moved her hand away from where it lay on the seat between them and tucked it into her coat. Touchstone had glanced at her and smiled that tight sad smile that was new to his face, but didn’t speak. Nor did she, and the constraint that now kept them silent together grew stronger.

Staying closer to the Wall had, in fact, accelerated their healing under the Charter spells. Only a week later they were across the Wall, journeying from the late Autumn of Ancelstierre to the Midwinter of the Old Kingdom.

The snow of the storm three weeks ago had thawed and refrozen enough times to form a rotten crust that made skiing tiring, but Touchstone had insisted that they climb Barhedrin ridge anyway. Sabriel didn’t argue, wanting to test the edges of Death from within the Old Kingdom.

And now, watching Touchstone visibly gather himself together in the face of the broken Stone, she thought she understood why he had wanted to come here.

“I must try to do something, some deed for which I must have been preserved from Death,” he said to her, then turned back to the Stone. Determined, but she knew him well enough now to see the fear and doubt that he had been struggling to subdue since his revival. “There is a spell, and a set of Charter marks for this. I saw them used once, but I was never taught…” Touchstone was far away, his hands stroking the cold stone, feeling the dead marks. Then, with a sudden decision, he drew one of his Charter-spelled swords and sliced the edge across his open left palm. He spoke a set of Charter marks unfamiliar to Sabriel and with his wounded hand wrote them on the cold stone. The bloody streaks burned faintly with the Charter’s familiar glow, then slowly faded and went out. The stone was unchanged. Touchstone sagged against the stone,  
“No, not quite like that,” he muttered.

He looked down at his sword, and at the the thin drops of blood staining the blade. Sabriel watched as he raised his sword up and spoke the Charter marks again, his voice strong and confident. This time the Charter marks swirled down the blade in patterns too complex to follow, mixing with the drops of blood in further patterns that spread like a sheen of oil along the blade. Touchstone held the sword just above the the dark crack in the riven stone and as he spoke more Charter marks formed in the air at its tip. Then he touched the sword’s point to the riven stone and spoke three master marks, and as he did the drops of blood spilled off the sword’s tip and danced onto the stone. They burned with a golden light and where they fell, the dead marks on the stone came to life, then spread, mark to mark, swirling in the great web of the Charter. The light grew all along the stone until Sabriel could not distinguish stone from Charter, and then it slowly faded.

But now the Stone was whole, a living web of Charter marks that continually wove its substance. Touchstone took a step back and his leg buckled, and he fell to the ground, breathing hard, his face tense with strain.

Sabriel could feel it immediately, the warmth of the living Charter Stone, banishing even the whisper of her sense of the Dead. And beyond that warmth, an echo of the unfathomable depths of the Charter, now stronger and brighter than before.

“Is it done? I wasn’t sure I could.” Touchstone looked at the Stone with something that was briefly like wonderment before it changed back to that sad resolve.

“Yes, it’s done.” She felt wonderment herself. Now there was more than hope; there was possibility. Reality that now came flooding into her consciousness: the Kingdom was broken, but Touchstone was a key to its restoration. And she was a key herself. She took a deep breath.

It was one thing to fight for her personal life, to save her father, to follow his last wishes. But she saw the vista ahead of her now, a life of toil, danger, struggle, and sacrifice. Touchstone had made his choice. She was ashamed of her adolescent wishes for personal happiness.

The mending, and the powerful magic that it required, had exhausted Touchstone. They broke out the rations that had been packed for them in Ancelstierre: dried meat, plain bread and cheese.

“What do you want from the Abhorsen’s House?” Touchstone asked her, as they rested in the wan daylight.

“I’m not sure, but I have to make certain that Kerrigor is secure. There are spell books in the library, and I hope I’ll find something that will do.”

“You don’t trust the collar and bell?”

“I suppose I do,” she said thoughtfully, “but Ranna is not Saraneth. Though since I don’t know how the collar has worked on Moggett all these years there’s no way I can tell how it will work with Ranna in place of Saraneth.” Touchstone appeared interested, so she continued.

“Then I’ll have to work on remaking the bells, Kibeth and Saraneth, and cleaning Astarael. I can remember pages now in The Book of the Dead about making the bells. But it will be a month’s work each, at least, since I’ve never done it, and using Charter magic I’ve never tried.” She sighed. “Probably dangerous.”

“That’s a great task for just one person,” Touchstone said. “Even the Abhorsen.”

“After that I’ll have to see what work the Abhorsen is needed for. Perhaps in Belisaere…” She was mostly talking to herself, trying to view her blank and unknown future as parts she felt she could manage, and half expecting Moggett to break in with some sardonic criticism.

“I’d like to banish the Dead from Belisaere,” she said finally, and shuddered, thinking of the scavengers and their doomed slaves.

“So would I,” said Touchstone. “And rebuild the Palace, maybe not as I remember it, but as a place of strength and joy again.”

“Maybe if there are Charter Mages I can persuade to help… .” She wanted to ask for his help, and ask if he needed hers, but the words stuck in her throat.

“I want to remake the Great Stones,” Touchstone said softly. “And as I am the last of the Royal bloodline, I have to try whatever I can to restore the Kingdom, and the Great Charters.” He didn’t look at her, his eyes downcast, and that made it easier for her to speak.

“There’s so much that must be done, and I don’t know how to do it! I need the bells to bind the dead, and I only have the dimmest idea how to create them, and it might take months. But we don’t have months. In months the Dead can force their way out, or be called out by the Free Magic creatures that are roaming between Death and Life. And the Great Stones must be repaired, but how are we to do that? The Palace is overrun with Dead, and I can’t banish them until the Stones are repaired to prevent that!”

Sabriel’s voice rose and her eyes were bright. She caught hold of herself and covered her face with her hands, hiding what might have been tears of frustration, or fear. “I wish Dad were here,” was what Touchstone thought he heard.

They sat together next to the now living Stone, gathering strength and warmth from it in preparation for the rest of the journey. Another day, probably, and Sabriel did not look forward to the journey, half-healed as they were. The memories of her flight that way only a few weeks before, of the terror of the Mordicant, seemed to leach away strength even as she drew it from the Stone.

Looking away toward their path, she saw two tiny specks of color whirling down the breeze from the North. Changing as they came closer from specks to shapes to bright-eyed birds to two joyful Paperwings: one green and silver, one red and gold, gliding in to land on the lip of Barhedrin ridge, now Cloven Crest no more.

She was not surprised to see Sanar and Ryelle were the Paperwings’ pilots. The two Clayr leapt from their Paperwings, held their wands up in a formal position and said in unison, “The Clayr welcome the King to his Kingdom, and the Abhorsen to her estate. We have Seen your success and offer the help of Clayr in the rebuilding of the Kingdom.” Then Sanar said, much more normally, “We were afraid we had the time wrong! We Saw you here but weren’t sure it hadn’t happened yet, but decided that we had better make sure.” Ryelle added, “We came to take you to Abhorsen’s House, and then, maybe to the Glacier, or maybe it was to Belisaere, we weren’t sure what was going to happen when. We went to the House first, and then realized you must be here, so we took the royal Paperwing there.”

Sabriel was too grateful at being spared the cold journey on foot to think too hard about what the Clayr’s greeting might mean. She and Touchstone carefully stowed their gear and then slipped themselves each into one of the delicate, magical craft.

First Sanar, then Ryelle, whistled the marks for flight and following wind, and the Paperwings turned their eyes north, toward Abhorsen’s House, and flew down and away from the ridge.

It was a short flight, and the air was very cold, but so clear Sabriel could see the rise of the Long Cliffs and the gleam of the Ratterlin long before they were close. Then came the place where the Ratterlin was banked with mist, and the small green island at the brink of the falls. Her heart clenched tightly at the sight of her father’s home, now hers.

And then they were landing in the open field beyond the orchard, the Paperwings gliding to land precisely on the island of Abhorsen’s House. A crowd of sendings were there already; by some magic of their construction as the Abhorsen’s servants, they seemed always to know what was going to happen in their small domain.

Once out of the Paperwing and standing before the door of the House, Sabriel could think of nothing but a hot bath and sleep in a soft bed, but she forced herself to open her pack and take out the sleeping cat that was the last physical embodiment of Kerrigor. “I must secure Kerrigor first. Somewhere that cannot be unbound, even if the House were overthrown.”

“One of the reasons we have come is because of Kerrigor,” said Ryelle. “The Watch Saw you Bind him, and we Saw which wards and guards will help you secure him even further. Not so strong as the Abhorsen can make herself, in time, but time is what we have not enough of. Give Kerrigor to us.”

Sanar took the black cat from Sabriel, and Ryelle took a plain wooden box from her Paperwing. But when Sabriel looked closer the box was not plain wood, but a living complex of Charter marks. Sanar laid the sleeping cat in the box, closed the lid, and spoke a mark, and the web of Charter marks swirled unbroken. “That will keep him asleep through all the futures that the Clayr have Seen so far. Against what we have not Seen, that will be your task to defend, Sabriel.”

Ryelle took Touchstone’s arm and pulled him closer to Sabriel. “Quickly now,” she said to Sanar.

They took up their wands and spoke formally again. “The Clayr proclaim their witness before the Charter to the marriage of the Abhorsen and the King.” The twins paused, and Sanar said softly, “Take his hand, cousin. No, the right in your right, and give me your left.” Sabriel meekly let Touchstone hold her hands, too stunned to protest. Sanar took Touchstone’s left hand in hers, joined it to Sabriel’s and said, “By the Charter that binds all things, may your lives be bound together in love and faithfulness.” She took their two joined hands and together brought them up to touch Sabriel’s forehead Charter mark, then Touchstone’s.

“You should have the royal rings,” Ryelle said, “but we were in a hurry and these will have to do. There.” She took two rings of plain crystal and placed one on Sabriel’s finger and the other on Touchstone’s. “All joy to you, cousin!” and she kissed Sabriel and then, “All joy to you, cousin!” and kissed Touchstone as well.

Sabriel stood there with her hand in Touchstone’s still. His large warm hand, roughly bandaged. His forehead Charter mark glowed faintly, as hers must as well. From the look on his face he was as confused as she was, and she felt him grip her hand slightly, as if for reassurance. Reassurance she needed herself in a world turned suddenly sideways, and she pressed back.

“What do you mean, not enough time?” Touchstone asked.

“The Watch have seen many futures, but all the ones that show the Kingdom restored begin here,” said Ryelle. “And the futures that show the Charter fading and failing also begin here, when Sabriel and Touchstone choose to be the last Abhorsen and the last King, and their children that must succeed them are never born.”

Sabriel was certain that could not possibly have meant what it appeared to mean.

Her heart began to race as she stood there together with Touchstone, blinking and probably looking as stupid as owls in sunlight, she thought, while the crowd of sendings surged toward them. The dim cowled forms paused and bowed twice, to Sabriel and then to Touchstone, and then she felt their immaterial hands draw her irresistibly into the House and on to the hoped-for bath, and food and, probably, bed.

The sendings had whisked her through the bath she was longing for, and made sure she put on the fresh clothes, but she was too distracted to enjoy the results. With a final, disembodied push, her attendant made sure she entered the Library, where she was not surprised to find Touchstone, also freshly washed and dressed.

“I’m sorry, Sabriel,” he said. “I know this is not what you would have wanted for yourself. I wasn’t much of a Prince, and I’m a King of not much more.”

“I’m sorry for you, too. I’m not the powerful Abhorsen you remember from your past. I’m just an eighteen-year-old girl; I was brought up ignorant of so much that’s necessary for me to know.”

“I’m not much older than eighteen myself, and I was raised in equal ignorance of the Kingdom as it is now. But I told you that I loved you, and I hope that you still don’t mind, and I think that we can learn what we must.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I do love you.” And as she said it, she knew its truth.

“I would like to hold you,” said Touchstone, “and cherish you, and make all those foolish promises that a man makes to a woman he loves; that everything will be all right, that I will keep you from all harm, and that I will never leave you, but you know as well as I do that none of those promises are in my power to keep. We are not just Sabriel and Touchstone, but the Abhorsen and the King, and our Blood is part of the Great Charter, and so our duties are clear.”

“But is it to be just duty for us? Are we only tools of the Charter?” Sabriel could scarcely believe what she was saying, but if Touchstone could be honest then so could she.

“It’s not either and or, one but not the other, Sabriel. I believe that it is possible to do one’s duty not for duty’s sake, but because it is the heart’s desire.”

His words were brave but the look on his face showed a vulnerability he did not try to hide. And if he did not need to hide, why should she? So her path was not where she had thought to go, or maybe it was to go precisely where she had dreamed - Kingdoms to save, Princes to marry. The Clayr had Seen them together, had Seen, in a fragmented moment, their children after them in a restored Kingdom. It was foolishness and perversity to discard the Path precisely because it was the Path of her desire.

“Does the Walker choose the Path or the Path the Walker?” she murmured. She took Touchstone’s hand in hers and reached up to kiss him. “And my choice is made.”


End file.
